1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates to a method or apparatus for eliminating the pain associated with receiving medical shots, particularly in dental procedures.
2. Background Information
Dental procedures often inflict a great degree of pain upon patients. To reduce this pain, dentists frequently use local anesthesia which is injected into the gums of patients by a syringe and needle before the commencement of painful dental procedures. The anesthesia deadens the nerves and allows the dentist to operate without creating excessive pain and discomfort for the patient. However, often dentists must administer a large quantity of anesthesia in a number of shots, causing many patients to wonder whether the pain for the shots exceeds the pain of the dental procedure. To lessen the pain inflicted upon patients when shots are administered, dentists will sometimes rub oral anesthetic ointment on the patient's gums or shake the patients' lip before administering the shots.
Other methods exist for deadening pain in dental operations, either with anesthesia or without anesthesia. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,606 by Tsukamoto discloses a device that uses ultrasonic vibration to increase the rate at which anesthesia becomes effective by improving the infusion and diffusion of anesthesia into the gums of a patient. Other devices, such as are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,019 by Kumabe et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,321 by Kumabe et al., include cutting devices which vibrate the patient's tooth at a rate which deadens the nerves of the tooth. However, none of these devices present a means of reducing or eliminating the pain associated with the initial application of anesthesia by needle to a patient.